May 2,1996

I was walking off from a marking pen, and heard laughter sounding just like the old days around the bunkhouse after the greybeards had gone to bed. The thought hit: For over six decades, I'd been messing around working sheep and cattle on horseback, unaware of a world of jet airplanes and jaguar automobiles.

From the way I felt then, the time might as well have been spent harpooning whales in the North Atlantic off the decks of a clipper ship, or leading a caravan of camels across the Sahara Desert to trade dry figs for water bags.

However, one reason being out of place never had bothered me was the way I'd been brought up to accept the applause and laughter of the Big Boss and his cowboys when a harmless old colt unloaded me 10 feet out the gate. Rowel marks across the seat of my saddle and gravel burns down the side of my face became a trademark. A personal brand, so to speak.

Rest assured it's much easier to pose as a tailgate cowboy than it ever was to fake being a bronc rider. Lots of the boys fresh out of town were top hands as long as the stage was the bunkhouse table and what they were riding was a sturdy bench. But next morning's long climb up on ol' Slim, or ol' Snake, followed by the fast fall down to Mother Earth spoiled the act.

After college, an old hand at the game helped cover up part of my deficiencies by teaching me to bleat like a ewe to catch young lambs the easy way, and kind of warble a bawl to make an old cow hunt for her baby. Both skills being mighty useful for a fellow handier shaking out a loop than filling it.

However, I learned one new trick on my own this spring. The last pastures we marked were over north of Mertzon in the slick ledge rocks and thick cedar breaks. On dry springs, the winds die over in the brush, releasing a torrid heat to rise up upon the rider and the ridden. The scrape of horseshoes sliding on the rocks makes old men pray at least two of their horse's feet will soon be on dirt. Triangles of sweat on the horse's flanks turn to mud and rolls of hair and fruitless expletives are cast in the direction of fleeing animals holding a big advantage of escape.

The ewes were young and wild and plenty crazy. The first ones I jumped outran me so bad they were out of sight in seconds. By the time I was able to pull my horse up, I was breathing so hard from the excitement, the whistling through my nostrils downwind must have sounded just like the feed wagon's horn. The lead sheep braked and started right back toward my horse. All I had to do was just keep panting and lead them right out into an opening.

So the next round, I changed the orders. I had told the passporters from town not to holler even if they set their shirts on fire lighting a smoke. But after seeing how well imitating the horn on the feed wagon worked, I told them it was all right to sound like a pickup horn as long as they didn't beep like the cabs do in Mexico.

None of this means good horsemen don't exist today. I overheard the greenest dude to ever put his padded self on the padded seat of a saddle, say a trader over at Del Rio had found him a horse to ride. What that meant was this fabled border horse dealer must specialize in locating trick horses smart enough and quick enough to stay under the rider. Any trainer or trader who has a horse able to keep that guy on his back deserves his picture in the front foyer of the Cowboy hall of Fame until they find time to make a bronze likeness for the main rotunda of the tuner and his horse.

The last time I saw the dude he was helping a neighbor work, or "help" was in the work order. It might be more accurate to say "a desperate situation" was being met by "a desperate solution." When I passed by, the greenhorn's horse struck a trot, and he looked exactly like the bundles bouncing around in the back of a laundry truck. I was a little uneasy of the whereabouts of my neighbor. With the drouth and all its miseries, I just had to hope he had the stability left to hold up under the circumstances.

A writer named Clyde Edgerton wrote to this effect in his book Redeye: "Cowboys still strike a chord of adventure and excitement. The skills they honed, the sights they saw can hardly be imagined by us mere mortals." Pretty strong words for a man trying to change from one of the loves of his life.